


The Whole Truth and Nothing But

by Alex_deMorra (Ergo_Sum)



Series: Fence Sitter [18]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Courtroom Drama, M/M, Things Go Badly, emancipated minor, unprepared
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 05:06:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9532934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ergo_Sum/pseuds/Alex_deMorra
Summary: Fence Sitter - Chapter 18Seventeen-year-old Micah is surprised when he receives a summons for an incident that was supposed to be behind him. He also had his day in court, which didn't go well.





	1. Chapter 1

_How the hell did he find me at school?_

A full minute after the man walked away from me, I stayed put and struggled to parse the meaning and magnitude of what just happened. I should move. I should get out of the way of students rushing past, students that needed to get to their next class, students that didn’t care that I stood in the middle of the walkway with an official looking paper released from its trifold.

But I also needed clues and I was afraid that the moment I gave up the piece of ground where I stood I would lose access to the moments that led up to our brief encounter. Granted, a place didn’t have memory in the same way that a person had memory. But there must be something in it. That’s what detectives did, wasn’t? So, I stayed. I remained, curious and standing in this exact place, to commune with it, to absorb what it remembered, and tuck all that information into my own brain to use later on, whenever I might need it.

The pieces fell into place.

Today was Wednesday.

I had a thing with Wednesdays.

For as long as I could remember, Wednesdays have been my balls-out, don’t even think about dawdling, definitely not getting sick-fatigued-overwhelmed, doing my homework on the bus, and carry energy bars or starve kind of days.

This was one of those Wednesdays.

I had been up at six and caught the bus by twenty past, which gave me time to get to campus where I started the stats assignment that was due on Friday. After that class, I had to book it across campus in order to get to my favorite class Philosophy of Law. After that was the team workout and I had just enough time to hit the showers before bio lab.

And this was where it all went wrong.

On a _normal_ Wednesday, I would finish lab and run for the bus and get to the community center with just enough time to do the books. At seven, capoeira class started and by nine, I would be on the bus to go home, where I would promptly shower, collapse, and get several hours of sleep before Danny came home. He and I would talk for a bit before to bed — or go to bed for a while and _then_ talk — but technically he got home on a Thursday morning so I didn’t count that part.

This was no longer a normal Wednesday. Case in point. I was currently late to bio lab and unsure if I should go at all. How did this happen? I recalled the events of this morning. Scott Groulx and I had been working on floor exercises, specifically building up to triple twist layouts. We quit practice on-time since we both had classes that started straight-up at one o’clock. After a quick shower, I raced out the door for the short trek to Pacific Hall.

That’s when I first noticed the guy. He must have been in his late thirties or early forties with a paunch, a bomber jacket, dark aviators, and a cap drawn low over his eyes. He leaned against a building perhaps a hundred feet from gym door, which was odd. People didn’t do that. Well, maybe if they stood there and talked to someone they did. Not if they were alone. Not if they weren’t a creep.

I had a sense. A feeling. A premonition. One that told me I needed to be aware of the space around me. And of that guy. He pushed off the building and made to intercept me. That’s when the pressure moved down to my gut. _Do not make eye contact_ , I told myself and reasoned that since it was the middle of the day and we were in public, the guy wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.

Then again, what did I know?

I threaded my arm through the other strap of my bag to free up my hands. Just in case. Both the shoulder and his knee on his right-hand side were weak. Also, just in case. He slowed his pace as he approached me; I did the same. Then he asked, “Are you Mr. Swaeler?”

“Yes.”

His extended hand held an envelope. “This is for you.”

“What is it?” I asked, not taking it from him.

“Legal documents. You have to take them.”

“What for?”

“You’re wanted in court. That’s all I know, man. They don’t tell us more than that.”

Then he left. Didn’t say goodbye, good luck, or anything. He just walked away.

That was it.

All that weirdness for a piece of paper.

But it wasn’t just any piece of paper.

It was one that I wasn’t supposed to get. I spoke to the prosecuting attorney months ago. They said they had all they needed. DNA results made their case bombproof. And since the defense said they wouldn’t be able to find a jury locally, they moved the trial up north somewhere. Sacramento, I heard. The state capital. Up there, they didn’t have so many people who drove on the freeway adjacent to the gymnasium. They didn’t have the someones who knew someones who had heard about someone who might have been affected. They didn’t have people whose local news stations played the story non-stop, with each new detail that boosted their ratings, with each new discovery that revealed the scale of the crimes committed.

Supposed crimes. No one had been convicted yet.

Yet here it was. My summons. On scanning the paper, I learned a few things. The most important of which was that I had three weeks to get my shit together.

I wanted to go home.

I wanted Danny.

Instead, I found a pay phone and called the number on the form for the prosecuting attorney’s office. The lawyers weren’t available so I got transferred to someone else.

“Oh, wow,” she said, “that was fast. Thanks for calling us. Do you have time to go over what to expect?”

 _Better get it over with_. “Sure.”

She went over details about what time I’d have to be at court (someone would meet me there) and advised me to get plenty to eat and sleep. That’s it? That’s all the preparation I needed? There were some important thing missing. I asked about the first: “But how do I get there?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t live in Sacramento. That’s a ten-hour drive.”

“Well, you can travel by bus, car, or plane. Just keep all the receipts so that you can get reimbursed.”

Reimbursed? My next inhale was a shaky one. “Maybe you…I don’t have money to get there. How am I going to get there?”

“You don’t have money to get here? What about your parents?”

“I’m emancipated.”

“I know but…”

I interrupted her, “No.”

“Okay,” she said, elongating the _y._ “Tell you what. Leave it with me and I’ll call you with details tomorrow. What’s your cell?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Oh. What about this number here? Area code six-one-nine…” she recited the number for our house phone.

“That’s fine. But I’m at school most of the day.”

She took a deep breath. “Are you home tonight?”

“Yes but late. I’m home by ten o’clock.”

“That’s pretty late.”

I was just about to ask about tomorrow when she interrupted my thought, “You know what? Don’t worry about it. I’ll call tonight. We can go through all the details, figure out how to get you up here. If your professors need a note for any absence, I’m sure we can get that together as well. We’ll handle it. All of it. Sound good?”

 _No._ “Sure. Thanks for…uh…being flexible.”

She ended our call in a breezy voice, “Anytime, Mr. Swaeler. Talk to you soon.”

I hung up the phone, now forty minutes late to lab, and turned around to see the post-lunch crowd of people going about their business — walking with friends, with headphones, with white capped cups — strolling in relatively straight lines so as not to slam into the bicyclists or skateboarders that wheeled by.

There was another phone call to make. In my wallet, was a hidden fold just large enough for the single card that I always kept in there but had never before removed. Until now.

When the women picked up, I gave her the name of my nurse and the number of my case file. “Oh,” the receptionist said, “she’s out on maternity leave.” I could barely hear her for the thundering of my heart and of all things I needed reminding of, the fact that I vomited my emotions rather than feeling them like a normal person was not one of them. I turned to face the brick wall so that passers-by wouldn’t see my lip trembling.

I would not lose it here.

“Nurse Ross in charge of your case file. Would you like to speak with her?” A sob jerked through my chest. What did they mean she was out. Why now? Who was this Nurse Ross? How could someone else do what she was supposed to do now? “Mr. Swaeler, are you there?”

“Yes,” I squeaked and took a deep breath. I covered my eyes with my free hand. It was shaking. “I would like to talk to her, please.”

_Exhale._

_One, two, three, four…_

_Exhale_

_One, two, three, four…_

_Exhale_

_One, two…_

“Hello, Mr. Swaeler?”

“Yes.”

“Hi. This is Nurse Ross. How can I help you?”

“Th…uh…The…” _The trial is starting. They want me on the witness stand. I don’t want to go on the witness stand. I’ve already told you everything. You have it on paper with my signature and everything. You have all the tests. The DNA should tell them everything. They don’t need me there. Why do they need me there? I’m not ready. I can’t do this._

“Micah? Is it okay if I call you Micah or do you prefer Mr. Swaeler.”

“I…er,” I couldn’t speak and could barely gulp in air. I tried to respond but my mouth wasn’t listening to the rest of me. It was too busy dealing with the strings of saliva that worked to seal my jaws shut.

“Micah, I can tell you’re having some trouble breathing so just stay on the line with me. Let me talk you through this.”

She did.

She stayed with me.

All I had to do was add more quarters to the phone box.

And exhale.

And count.

There wasn’t much she could tell me other than the fact that the original nurse — my nurse — would probably also get a summons. “Micah, I am very sorry about this timing but I want you to know that we are here for you any time of day, any day of the week. Okay?”

“Okay,” I echoed.

For the second time, I returned the phone to the cradle and for the second time, I felt less certain of my world. The buildings were all where I’d left them, as were the sidewalks. I slung my bag off my shoulders and it, too seemed the same as it was. The fact that I could see these things, touch them, bang my fists against them, slump along them meant nothing. They had become abstract. Mere fascia. They weren’t real.

Nothing was.

Not the lab that I went to or my partner who stayed late to help me catch up. Not the bus I rode after class. Not the community center or their double-entry system that required more numbers for their columns. Not the guy who looked like Kenny Walker or _Mestre_ or the twenty-something people wearing white pants who did triple claps in time with instruments and play at the end of class. Not even the phone call that came at ten o’clock with the information that provided options between having a same-day, round-trip plane ticket or taking a bus and staying overnight in a hotel.

No fucking way did I want to stay there. “The plane, please,” I requested.

Someone next to her booked my ticket while she remained on the phone with me. And when she said that she’d send the tickets by registered mail, I — like every other time she tried to help me — told her there was a problem. In this case, I wouldn’t be home to sign for them. “Can you send them to the place I work?” I suggested.

“Uh,” she paused and covered the mouthpiece. I thought she was going to say no when she delivered again, “Yep. I can do that.” I gave her the address and phone number for the community center. That was the last thing on logistics of getting there that we needed to finalize.

Or so I thought.

When I transferred the travel information into my school calendar, I saw that the day I was supposed to be in court was not only a Wednesday but also the date of a scheduled exam. _Well, okay then._ There was nothing I could do about it other than talk with the teacher at office hours. It would be ironic if I failed because my Philosophy of Law professor couldn’t find a way of working out an alternate schedule due to my having to be in a court of law on exam day.

I sat on the couch with my eyes covered with the heels of my hands for I didn’t know how long before I went to bed. Sleep was slow coming and rough going. Just when I sunk into a numb, quiet lull, a jolt brought me back, wide-eyed and alert, into the room.

Then I began the next round of settling down.

The pillows were of some comfort. I hugged them close — one at my chest, one at my legs — and thought of all the times Danny and I fell asleep like this. I pretended he was here, that I could feel how his chest expanded next to me and how his hands and hair smelled like coffee but his skin smelled like lemons.

I was reminded of that awful concoction he fooled me into drinking. Old coffee, fresh lemons, hot water, and a wink. He did warn me that I wouldn’t like it. But the way he dared me was something else and how could I say no?

I hugged the pillow closer.

His eyes that night were so dark that I couldn’t decide whether they were black or merely deep, dark brown. There was something, though, a trick of the light, that told me I had to keep looking, that I didn’t yet know their true color. It wasn’t until the next morning, in the natural, morning light of this south-facing room, I saw they were the color of blueberries.

 _Blueberries,_ I thought, my body already felt heavier with sleep.

Now I thought of the blueberry muffins with orange streusel topping that I made last weekend. I brought them in to Danny while they were still hot. We fed them to each other in bed and got crumbs all over the place. It was fun. We laughed a lot and even though I had to strip the sheets and wash them early, I thought we should make eating in bed a regular thing.

We had muffins on a Sunday.

The sheets were new as of the Thursday before. I always changed the sheets on Thursday. It was a thing that I did. Changing sheets.

If Wednesdays were the days that overflowed, Thursdays were the days to catch the overflow. It was a day for sleeping in and doing homework and changing sheets. I didn’t have to go to school or to workout. It was Danny’s day off, too. Sometimes we read with our backs on opposite arms of the couch and under the same blanket with our feet tangled together.

Thursdays were definitely nicer than Wednesdays.

It would be Thursday in an hour.

I sunk deeper into the sheets.

_But._

_I couldn’t sleep._

_The problem had to with the muzzle of a gun on the other side of the window. It was pointed at my head. There was circle completely void of color surrounded by a reflective circle that was just as dark. Under that it was another set of nested circles. A semi-matte graphite in the shape of upside down Matryoshka doll outlined both. It floated, the two-dimensional abstract, but logic informed me the rest of the gun was behind that muzzle just as there was a person behind the gun._ _Even if they had been absorbed into the giant sea of black beyond the glass._

_I hid behind a wall of pillows._

_I ducked inside a tent of blankets._

_I draped myself under layers of loose-fitting clothes._

_But like the eyes in a portrait, the gun followed me. Twice I moved to sleep on the floor but the effort was no good. It found me. It never fired. But it could. At any second, it could. It was in charge. Not me. That’s what it wanted to let me know: the threat was real._

_Boom!_

I flew out of bed and into the wall, knocking over a glass of water and a pile of books in the process. My heart was stuck in my throat (again) and tried in vain to pound itself loose. The digital alarm clicked across the room to signal the passing of a new minute. Beyond that was some shuffling followed by a soft illumination whose source was in the room beyond the hallway. I slid down the wall and put my head on my arms until the shaking subsided.

_It was just Danny. I’m okay._

_Exhale..._


	2. Chapter 2

The sign-bearing woman who met me at the airport wore pearls and stress wrinkles. I’d never seen actual pearls before. They were okay — even pretty — but seeing them in person didn’t help me understand why they were valued so highly.

She scanned the crowd and overlooked me time and time again, even though I was well within her line of vision. I took a deep breath and continued to walk toward her. At twenty feet away, she — with her eyebrows high, her smile toothy, her neck tendons tight, her underwear marring an otherwise perfectly fitting dark green dress — locked onto me. “Micah?” she asked?

I nodded and smiled. Tried to smile. I succeeded in closing my mouth. My lips might have stretched toward my ears. They also might not have. I wasn’t sure.

My dress-wearing driver (I didn’t know her name) announced, “Let’s get you over to the court. It’s going to be a busy day,” and promptly got on her phone and stayed there. She kept that phone braced against her shoulder and her ear, not noticing that she had once cut someone off and that several seconds later, they passed her and, after not getting her attention, flipped her off aggressively before cutting her off in a similar manner. “Nothing…some people don’t know how to drive. What was I saying? Oh…”

_Exhale._

_One, two, three, four._

That conversation continued until she wrenched the emergency brake into place after we’d parked in a downtown garage. By then, I felt a little seasick. It was the driving, for sure, but it was also the salon smell of the car and my long since consumed bowl of cereal didn’t sustain me in the way I felt it should have. Still, I held it together.

That is, I held it together until I saw the news vans in white and blue, each with a giant antenna. My chaperone’s eyes darted to me and to the pairs of people that stood between the vans and the large concrete building — one person coiffed to an inch of their life several feet away from the second person, a hulk in their own right, freely supporting a massive video camera strapped to their shoulder. We got closer.

_Exhale._

_One, two, three._

“I don’t want to be on the news,” I mewled. In public, no less. I sounded a small child who had not gotten their way, who was in danger of breaking into a soft sob, one that required a parent to pick them up, coo soothing statements to them and rub their back. But I wasn’t a child and there would be no back rubbing or soothing statementing and unless I did something differently, I would be on the news.

_Exhale._

_One, two, three._

My backpack slid off my shoulders and my arms slipped out of my sweater arms.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m covering my face.”

Her recently soured face was muted by the tight weave of my sweater (the one Seth let me borrow), though she remained close by to guide me along the edge of the entranceway into the building and provide terse instruction to _put myself together._

There were too many people in front of us to see which number she pressed when we got into the elevator and I had neglected to pay attention when we got out because I was astonished the hallway in front of me that was (I was pretty sure) longer than a football field. The woman (who still hadn’t introduced herself) clipped along with me right beside her. We passed closed doorway after closed doorway. Then someone opened one of the doors and I could see inside. The room was probably as large as our house, filled with things made of polished wood, and the floor was covered by that beige-gray carpet my mom called bullet-proof (though this looked nicer).

“Be quick, Micah. I’m trying to get you to the designated waiting room before the others show up.” I took that to mean I didn’t have to see Nick. So I sped up.

There were no tables in the designated waiting room for victims. Presumably, this was because no victims in the state of victimhood (or California) had to complete a take-home exam while they waited to be put on the stand.

I chose to sit in last of a long row of seats and I dropped my bag into the one next to me. As I pulled out my books, study guide, and exam, I rummaged for one of my stash of sports bars I kept with me only to remember I had eaten the last one yesterday. My stomach growled.

Hopefully, they would call me soon.

Hopefully, my testimony would go quickly.

Hopefully, my breakfast wouldn’t let me down even though my stomach has been empty for ages.

Images and blue banners flashed across the silent TV mounted on an adjacent wall, which distracted me away from answering a question regarding the difference between a war of aggression and a war for a just cause when the instigators claimed the latter (our in-class discussion was contentious).The reporter on the TV screen was standing in front of this very building. Her eyebrows were wrinkled with concern and her lips were glossy and full in a color that was half-pink and half-purple. She frowned and yet she was unflappable. Next, the video panned into a long shot of two men, one of whom I had never seen before, both in dark suits. They rushed into the building without having answered a single question.

Nick was here.

I had hoped (and I didn’t know why I thought this was a possibility) that I wouldn’t have to face him.

_Exhale._

_One, two, three, four._

_Exhale._

_One, two, three, four._

Perhaps I would be more successful in finishing this exam if I moved to another question. I scanned one on John Stuart Mill’s imperative to develop one’s own individuality above all other pleasures. Hm. Maybe.

Then I got to the one regarding the moral permissibility of lying. The one where it was not only acceptable but imperative to do so. Bingo.

The situation described a doctor who, upon learning that her patient had months to live, told this same patient they had a fifty percent chance of recovery. _Consider_ , my exam read, _that lies had “lives of their own” and brought about unforeseen consequences. Therefore, it was difficult to predict whether greater good or greater harm would come from lying. Make an argument for either side and back it up with a second case study of your choosing. You will be graded on the reasoning presented._

As it happened, I could have written this one in my sleep. My hand flew over a page in my notebook and barely kept up with my streaming thoughts on examples, on references, on key points and arguments. On counterpoints and the arguments against them. On the subfamilies of examples in which lying would be appropriate. On when, beyond any question, only the truth would suffice and who would be the holder of that truth.

The thoughts came to me unbidden and flipped page after page as they filled up. Progress was so fast coming, and so intense, that I jumped when a bailiff barked my name.

“Must be pretty exciting stuff you’re working on,” he said and relaxed his gruff face into a half-smile.

_Exhale._

_One, two, three, four._

_Exhale._

“So, it’s time?”

“It is.”

The courtroom was both packed and larger than I expected.

_Exhale._

_One, two, three._

_Exhale._

_One, two, three._

The bailiff that brought me here swore me in.

Nick was there. Right in front of me. Straight in my line of vision. I told myself to look away. On one side was the box that held twelve jurors. All of them looked straight at me. To my immediate right was the judge — the same one that I’d seen on TV in the other room — who may have also been a giant and, in order to make eye contact with me, had to look down. Her hair was cut short enough to see her scalp, looked chemically straightened, and she had a silver quiff at the front that I’ve never been able to manage for myself. And her face, which might have been kind in other circumstances, told me she wasn’t about to take any shit from me or anyone else.

Finally, at the table in front of me and to my right, of the two identically suited men who sat there, the older one stood up and approached me. _I’m not the one on trial_ , I reminded myself. He began with questions about where I lived and for how long and how I came to live there. He asked about school and what I studied and what I hoped to achieve. He asked about gymnastics and how long I had practiced and whether I still went to competitions.

Next, he asked me about my history and about my time at Nick’s gym. He was curious about when I started and the types of sponsorships Nick extended during my time there. He was curious about if I had ever been uncomfortable either in the space or in Nick’s presence. Everything he asked me about was right out of the report that I’d given the nurse that one day.

Then he asked about video surveillance.

He asked if I noticed the cameras in the showers and changing rooms. If I’d seen the ones in Joe’s secret room that he took to once — the same that I refused to visit again. And what about in the offices. Did he ever have me change in there?Had he ever asked me to take somebody out on a date or to kiss them or to do more? Did anyone at the gym ask to take me out or to kiss me or to do more?

Was I aware that I had been filmed?

I sat there shaken, barely able to say, “No. I had no idea.” Or “No, I didn’t see any cameras.” Or, “There was just that one time in the office but there wasn’t any video and I closed the computer screen.”

“And his house? Did you ever attend any events in the house where you might have changed clothes or participated in sexual behaviors with other visitors?”

I shook my head.

I felt sick.

“I’m afraid that I need you to answer out loud for the court.”

I cleared my throat and said, “No.”

Video. He had me on video. He had seen me naked I couldn’t have said how many times. He saw me and Joe. But who else saw us?

_Exhale._

_One, two, three._

_Exhale._

_One, two, three._

A quick survey of the courtroom revealed different levels of interest. There were those that practically screamed, _oh, you poor, stupid boy._ Then there were the ones who were sickened. But there were also the ones that were interested, the ones who — I couldn’t help but think — either looked forward to seeing those tapes or perhaps had already enjoyed them.

_Exhale._

_One, two._

_Exhale._

_One, two._

“Micah, I’m going to ask you to take me through the evening of your attack.”

_Exhale._

_One, two._

_Slow down, slow down._

_Exhale._

_One, two._

He took me — slowly and carefully — through that afternoon. It started with Joe and of what we planned to do when we met alone in the hotel room.

“You planned to have sexual relations with your teammate?”

“Yes. But I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to anymore.”

“And why was that?”

“Because the risk of getting caught was too much and I didn't want to mess up my career.”

“Okay, so then you were in your hotel room waiting to meet Joe. What happened?”

When my gaze drifted to Nick, the prosecuting attorney broke that line of sight by standing in front of me. When my voice cracked, he prompted me to sip from the bottle of water that someone had left for me before I took the stand. When I couldn’t answer, he waited patiently, as if he had all the time in the world. His questions were, for the most part, open-ended: _Go on, Micah. Please tell me what happened next_. On the occasions that I didn’t know how to answer he would ask _why_.

He was polite. At the time, with the weight of over a hundred faces on me, that was important. It mattered. It mattered that what I had to say was important enough not to pressure me. To wait for what I had to say. It mattered that his face, though hard with the judge and his colleague and the defense, was soft with me. It mattered because, whether it was true or not, it felt like he was on my side, he believed me, he gave merit to what I had to say, incomplete as it was. It mattered because it felt like I was only telling my story to one person and not a room full of strangers.

Somehow, that made it easier.

But only for a moment.

Because the last thing he asked me about was of the phrases I had floating in my head. Things that I don’t remember hearing but I knew they had been said. Things about how my career would be over if I told anyone what happened. Things about how I loved it. Things about it only hurting the first time. Things about what else he wanted to do to me. All of these things, I had convinced myself, were things I had made up. That my brain, in it’s infinite complexity, needed to string together in order for the attack to make sense. I had never learned differently.

Until now.

The prosecuting attorney addressed the jury. “The testimony that you are hearing now will all be shown to you with videographic evidence. The defendant, you see, had set up cameras in the hotel room while the victim was still in the bathroom. At the beginning of the tape, you will hear the water from the shower turn off. You will hear the victim call out to his friend Joe. You will hear a skirmish. All of this will be off screen. Then you will see the defendant brutally rape the victim — all in clear view — and you will hear these phrases coming out of the mouth of the defendant as he said them to the victim who was drugged, unable to move, and unable to defend himself.”

Nick recorded that? And then — what — he watched it? I felt sick. I felt so, so sick. The prosecuting attorney looked around the room in triumph, as if he hadn’t torn me open all over again. Bile rose in my throat at the utter injustice of the moment. And why? Wasn’t this — to a large degree — about getting justice? For me? The other victims, too. Yes.

I felt so naked and betrayed and helpless. And dirty. I was just one more piece in some fucking, dramatic parade that was going to get him a victory. That wasn’t how this was supposed to work.

Right?

I continued to process what just happened when the defense attorney approached. He stood stern-faced and just askew to in front of me to highlight Nick’s smirk and single raised eyebrow just beyond the tip of the attorney’s elbow. He geared up for his first question and let loose, “Tell me Mr. Swaeler, are you gay?”

_What? Why did that matter?_

I hardly knew how to answer. I had a boyfriend. I lived with Danny. But I had also dated girls. I was queer and bi and, though others might call me gay, it didn’t feel right to describe myself that way. I answered with an explanation, “Not exactly. What I mean is…”

“Yes or no, Mr. Swaeler.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you are a gay man, Mr. Swaeler?”

“It’s not…”

“Yes or no. Do you honestly not know if you are a homosexual?”

“I date girls, too.”

“That wasn’t the question. Do you know if you have engaged in homosexual activities?”

“Yes.”

“And _have_ you engaged in homosexual activities, Mr. Swaeler?”

“Yes.”

“Then for the sake of argument, I must assume that you are known as a homosexual. Now, have you engaged in any homosexual activities at the center owned by the defendant?”

I took a breath and very much wanted to correct him. I didn’t think I could. That didn’t seem right. If I were up here on this stand and I had promised to tell _the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,_ didn’t I have to speak up?

“You don’t quite have it right, sir.”

“I asked a simple question, Mr. Swaeler. Did you or did you not engage in homosexual practices at the defendant’s gym?”

I looked up at the judge. She looked back at me and said, “Answer the question, please.”

I swallowed. I looked at Nick. I surveyed the room.

_Exhale._

_One._

_Exhale._

_One._

_Exhale._

“Judge, will you please direct the witness again to answer the question?”

She did and repeated, “Mr. Swaeler, please answer the question.”

“Yes,” I said.

The defending attorney boomed to the courtroom, “For the record, in case you couldn’t hear him, the witness agreed that yes he had engaged in homosexual behavior at the defendant’s gym.” Then he directed his attention to me again, “And were those acts consensual?”

_Exhale._

_One._

_Exhale._

_One._

“Yes.”

He continued to guide me through a series of questions about Joe and about what the two of us had been up to and how we hid it from the coaches. None of which was about the attack. None of which were about Nick. Or what he did to me. And when the defending attorney got to the events of that evening, his first question was, “When you went to the hotel room that evening, Mr. Swaeler. Were you planning on meeting anyone there?”

“Yes.”

_Exhale._

_One._

_Exhale._

_One._

“Who did you plan on meeting there?”

“Joe.”

“Yes, you had already said that the two of you had made arrangements to meet in the room. And that you had planned to engage in the sexual act of penetration. That was what you meant by having sex, was it not?”

_Exhale._

_Exhale._

_Exhale._

_Exhale._

A thin sheen of sweat broke through my skin. I had already admitted this but the question, when the defense attorney asked it, sounded different. The tone had changed. He wanted to blame me. I could see how this would go. That because we had been planning on it, I wanted it and, for all of those reasons, either my character could be called into question ( _He wanted it, your honor_ ) or the defendant could be excused for his actions ( _My client may have understood the situation differently than the witness but that didn’t make him guilty)._

I would answer honestly. This was not a yes or no question. 

My answer would have no bearing on whether the DNA taken from my body matched Nick’s. They would see that. Right? It was a fact. Immutable.

But if the jury believed it was consensual, he might get a reduced sentence. He’d be out earlier. He might get revenge. Or, could this be a reason for a mistrial? Or, would they find him innocent? Or, me guilty? Could they took my testimony and came after me? Would they lock me up? What if I never got home? What if…

“Judge, I’d like your permission to treat Mr. Swaeler as a hostile witness.”

I tried to answer, I did. But no words would leave my mouth. They refused. And the rest of me just sat there, utterly battered

_Exhale._

_Exhale._

_Exhale._

_—_

_—_

The air that flowed over my chapped lips was cool and dry on the way in, hot and parched on the way out. The room swerved but whenever I pinned my gaze on a particular item — a juror, a chair, the door, the bailiff — it stopped moving. The judge looked at me with concern and asked, “Mr. Swaeler, do you need to take a break?”

“I…eh…” I nodded and stood without knowing that I had to wait for her dismissal. I saw Nick’s face one more time before the room tipped sideways and went white.


End file.
